June 2017

06/26/2017

Businesspeople in Belfast, North Ireland, are testing a program to encourage cyclists to shop in their area.

With financial support from the EU and the U.K.-based cycling advocacy/support group Sustrans (Sustainable Transportation), businesses in the East Belfast area are joining Pedal Perks, a cyclist loyalty scheme that offers discounts and loyalty rewards to those who arrive on bicycles.

In return, the businesses will have their products and services promoted to the 10,000 cyclists who work near or use the cycleways in the area. Those signing on include health food stores, drug stores, cafes and eateries. Read the Sustrans article here. (And go to the website of the European Cyclists' Federation for other innovative cycling information.)

I latched on to the quote from Sustrans active-travel officer Pamela Grove-White: "People, not cars, spend money."

Yes, so the goal would be to get more people to your business. If there is one parking space in front of your cafe, you may be getting one customer. What if you converted that one parking space to bicycle parking? Cited by the Sustrans article was a University of Birmingham study that said bicycle parking space generates five times more consumer spending per square metre than does automobile parking space.

Try that notion out on Waterloo Region retail businesses, where the hackles often go up at the suggestion of losing a street-side parking space, and few seem to think about bicycle parking.

So, maybe the bicycle parking is a hard sell. But a Pedal Perks loyalty card? Sure, why wouldn't that work? Throw in a bike rack so that cycling consumers feel welcome, and see what happens.

06/25/2017

I was wondering why I was getting notices from Dirt Rag Mountain Bike Magazine, advising me that my sub was almost up and it was time to renew.

I never was a Dirt Rag subscriber, so I thought it was just a marketing ploy.

I was a subscriber to Bicycle Times, which was the recreational cycling spinoff in the Dirt Rag universe. Bicycle Times announced in March of this year that it was ceasing its print publication and continuing as a website and "brand". (How does one continue as a "brand"? If no one was buying Coke, would Coke just keep the name alive and you'd drink "Coke" online?)

Anyway, I apparently missed the notice that my Bicycle Times sub would continue with Dirt Rag. I was never much into Dirt Rag -- too much about racing and mountains.

The current issue (and my last unless I renew, according to the emails I'm getting) has some pretty good reads, including Joe Parkin's guest editor space, Damon Roberson's piece on "chocolate foot", Steve Kinevil's piece on his fave bike, and a selection of bicycling tales in the feature, Let Me Tell You A Story. It is 80 pages of material that reminds me of Bicycling Magazine back in its golden period. (Maybe the influence of Dirt Rag's editor-in-chief Mike Cushionbury, who was on Bicycling's staff back in the early 2000s.)

Am I going to renew? It's $30 USD for a year. It's only $20 USD for a year if you live in the U.S., which totally sucks since someone in Alaska gets a mag shipped from Pittsburgh for less than someone in southern Ontario gets it. Odds are good that the answer will be "no", but I'm still thinking about it.

There are four more accomplished adult cyclists on the streets of Kitchener and Waterloo, thanks to the City of Waterloo, which is hosting of an almost full suite of CAN-BIKE programs from now until the fall.

Five hours of cycling, classroom work and testing on Saturday marked the end of a three-session Level 4 program, the top level for cyclists who want to develop their on-road, in-traffic cycling skills. (Full Disclosure: I'm a CAN-BIKE instructor, and marked the written portion of the last-day testing.)

The instructor for this class was Philip Martin, a former public school teacher who founded the Cycling Into The Future program to deliver cycling education to hundreds of Grade 5 students in Waterloo Region. For three of the four CAN-BIKE students on Saturday, this will be the next stop on their way to taking Level 5 and becoming qualified CAN-BIKE instructors themselves.

These grads will populate cycling education sessions in CITF, and instruct CAN-BIKE programs where municipalities want to see engaged and capable cyclists sharing the roads with motorists.

I am always satisfied to see the expressions on CAN-BIKE students' faces after that last training ride: confident, even exhilarated, about their on-road potentials and abilities.